Sceptic, this has to be exciting as more of us stand up and be counted. I had a few years in Dunedin - many years ago, best city ever !!!!!
I'm up for a coffee, or red wine, but in CHCH - too far away - sorry
Hopefully another dunedin-ite will pop up out of the woodwork !

hi everyone, just stumbled upon this thread, great to see so many kiwis here! I have been 99% primal for 3 weeks but mostly grain free for a month before that and gluten free for about 3 months. I have a 12yr old daughter that has been about 80% primal at home (away from home is a different story!) for the last 3 weeks also. The Mr on the other hand is not so keen on the changes, I found his hidden loaf of bread in the top of the pantry the other day haha. We're in auckland and I have no primal friends either so it would be awesome to have a primal network for NZ.

Hi NZBee, it's cool that you have adopted primal so quickly and getting your daughter on board too. I laughed about your dh hiding his bread. My dh and dd (11) seem to love our primal dinners and don't complain much about the bare pantry (but the teenage daughter came home from uni and said "there's nothing left!" True, it does look empty, that's because when I buy food, we eat it. Doesn't stay sitting in the cupboard, lol.

Sceptic, this has to be exciting as more of us stand up and be counted. I had a few years in Dunedin - many years ago, best city ever !!!!!
I'm up for a coffee, or red wine, but in CHCH - too far away - sorry
Hopefully another dunedin-ite will pop up out of the woodwork !

I'll probably be up that way for new years, so maybe we'll be able to meet up for a chat then.

As to other Dunedinites, I'm sure one or two will pop up eventually. And if they don't, I'll just have to continue horrifying the other locals with tales of my breakfast fry-ups ;-)

Argue not with idiots, lest they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

We put in for a bach in early january with my ILs. I promised myself I would not plan this holiday, but I am because DH is procrastinating and honestly, I don't want to live with my ILs in my tiny, 450 sq ft cottage for 21 days with nothing planned.

First, I found accommodation for them -- I put in the booking enquiry, but they said we shouldn't hear back until November (that's when they'll know about the booking availability). It's really annoying, because things can book up very quickly, you know? I just can't have them staying in my house. But, I found a place that's $440/wk, and that's probably the best price, honestly. Has it's own little kitchen, bath, and bedroom. And it's in a nice side of town, honestly. Well, there are several in nice sides of town.

Second, I put in a request for a bach near Ngawi. DH and I went there five years ago and really loved it, and so we want to go back -- hike the pinnacles, see the light house, hang on the beach, etc. And, overall, have a relaxing time. I don't know how actually possible that is with my ILs, but at least I'll have my own room in the house to escape to for goodness sakes. Of course, i don't like them being around my kid, so that might be another element for me.

Third, I'm trying to figure out the alternative day trips and stuff. I thought we'd do a little up kapiti way -- there's plenty to do for sure. We can do day trips as well -- it's an hour in and an hour out for most things, so that's easy enough. And, we have all of the things we want to do *in* wellington as well, which includes staying home and doing things in and around seatoun.

Hi,
Also a Kiwi in central Auckland. I've been reading this site for a few months now after stumbling across it while googling the gluten status of rolled oats. Had gradually cut out all other sources before that when they didn't seem to be doing me any good. I was actually diagnosed gluten intolerant as a kid but thought later that it was a mistake. Pity this site wasn't around years ago - back then the advice was to substitute other very bad tasting flour products. Perhaps I would never have gone vege/semi-vege!

Bearcat - welcome to our ever growing thread. Its great to have you join us.
I so agree about all this wonderful advice etc... being around years ago. The time that i have wasted over the years conforming to CW !
We have just had the most awful hail/thunder/lightening storm pass through. Actually its still raining very heavily, so Look out Zoe girl. Batten down the hatches, cos its comin on up your way !
Hope you get the bach Zoe, and yes you so need to have your own safe haven to disappear to when on holiday with others.
The best times - the worst times !!!! holidays....with others !

Hi all, just stumbles across this thread. I also live in NZ, half hr north of Hamilton, tried to introduce myself on the meet and greet forum but couldn't work out how to do that. Oh well.

I have been on a different diet this last week, the harcombe diet, phase 1 is for 5 days in which you do not consume any mushrooms, vinegar or sugar (that includes all processed carbs) Anyway, I am now in phase 2 and it is very, very similar to the MDA programme. I haven't lost any weight yet but feel good today after having a very tired week full of really bad headaches.

I am in the middle of menopause and also have hypothyroidism, so wondered if that has been the main problem with my weight. I've read about the reason why this diet does not use any grains and it makes a lot of sense to me. I do miss the sourdough toast in the mornings tho but can live without it. Wine is another story, but I don't actually crave it today, had no wine at all last week, untill Friday night after work.
Tonight we had steak and a leek dish which had no cheese sauce like normal, I used a recipe from the Sunday paper which used only whole foods and it was very nice.
A question about other drinks: I know that even tonic water has sugar in it, so will not drink that, but instead of wine and water (which I'm sick of) what can I drink? Is stevia allowed on this diet? I've got a bottle of CHI' which has stevia, it's drinkable so wondered if I could have that? And dairy products? Does the primal diet not include that?

Hi Seaweed,
Try grinding the raw beans, I used to and put it in my banana or blueberry smoothie! Tastes lovely and that's coming from me who isn't into chocolat at all. If you were to keep grinding them they would turn into chocolate paste.(Native Mexicans use a kind of pestle and mortar I believe) I've stopped buying it as I found it quite expensive.